


History Repeats Itself. Somebody Said This.

by gaialux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, M/M, Mistletoe, Pre-Canon, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:59:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2683571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At sixteen, Sam kills his first demon on his own. At twenty, he's at Stanford and trying to leave that life behind. At twenty-four, he's somewhere inbetween. A snippet from each of these years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Repeats Itself. Somebody Said This.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glovered](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glovered/gifts).



> Written for the spn-j2-xmas exchange! Contains brief, non-explicit underage sex (Sam is 16) and some underage drinking (Sam is 20).

**_December 1999_**  
  
Sam's killed it.  
  
The snow is flecked with blood and Sam can't catch his breath, but there in front of him lies a body slowly leaking blood.  
  
"Shit. Sam."  
  
Sam whips his head around and sees Dean standing there. His mouth hangs open as if the hinge to pull it closed has gone loose, broken. Sam isn't sure if he wants to laugh or cry. He opts to stand still as Dean closes the distance between them and presses his hands to either side of Sam's face.  
  
"What were you doing?" He's searching Sam's eyes as his hands run down to Sam's neck and stay there. "Man, you're freezing."  
  
It's then Sam realises how much he's shaking and he  _can't stop_. Just like he can't slow his heartbeat or stop from glancing over at that body. _That body_. There was once a human in there. Once a living, breathing person who probably had a family and it's so close to Christmas and—  
  
"Sammy." Dean comes back into view. His thumb is rubbing soft, slow movements up and down Sam's neck. "Look at me."  
  
He can't. He's seen Dad and Dean kill dozens of times before — even a few demons thrown into the mix. Sam's killed, too: werewolves, poltergeists, other things that go bump in the night. But never a human. Never.  
  
"I killed him," Sam says. Or thinks he says. His own voice doesn't reach his ears.  
  
"What?" Dean's brows crease together. "Yeah. The  _demon_ , Sam. Not  _him_."  
  
"No, I." Sam swallows, but anger surges up and replaces the confusion and guilt that's clawing in his chest. "Where were you, anyway? You said you had my back!"  
  
Dean's hands drop away and Sam shivers harder. "I told you to wait by the car. What were you doing running off like that?"  
  
"The demon, he— _it_ ," Sam quickly corrects himself. "It was getting away and you were wasting so much goddamn time waiting for Dad."  
  
Dean breathes out hard and his breath is visible in the air. A few particles reach Sam's face, warm. "You shouldn't go out on your own."  
  
"It's dead," Sam says. The anger is gone as fast as it came and he's back to not being able to breathe. It will go away. He knows it will go away. The first time he shot a silver bullet through the chest of that werewolf in Indiana it felt the same way, but by the time he was back at school it had dulled to a soft throb further inside.  
  
"Yeah," Dean says. His voice is soft again. "It is. Now come on, we gotta get you inside."  
  
Sam nods numbly and lets Dean tug his sleeve, leading him away from the body. It  _is_ freezing out here and Sam had left his coat behind in the car. He didn't want to get it covered in blood if Dean hadn't found him and he had to make his own way back to the motel—  
  
"Wait," Sam says. He turns around and takes in the man one last time. "The body. You can't—"  
  
Dean's hand slides to the small of Sam's back and pushes. "I've got stuff in the car."  
  
Oh.  
  
~  
  
Dean keeps turning the heat up higher but Sam can't stop shivering. He watches the speedometer rise and rise until he's hitting 80 and the snow outside is a blur in the corners of Sam's eyes. When he closes them, he hears the sound of that man — demon? — begging for his life.  
  
He shudders and Dean speeds up.  
  
~  
  
"Where's Dad?" Sam asks when they step into the motel room. There are papers spread across the table and a salt cannister lying on top of them.  
  
The door clicks shut and Dean's hand is back on him. "I'll give him a call. You get into bed."  
  
Sam's too tired, cold, and sore to argue. He goes over to one of the two double beds and peels back the covers.  
  
"Clothes off," Dean says. When Sam looks back at him he adds, "They're wet."  
  
Right. Smart. He drops them into a heap of the floor and figures someone will toss them into the laundry bag. Sam crawls into the bed, lays his head against the pillow, and closes his eyes.  
  
The voice is back of course.  
  
 _"Please," the demon is begging. "I've_ seen  _it, what it's done. Please make it stop. Please, please."_  
  
Sam's eyes shoot back open and Dean's looking at him. The phone receiver is in his hand, but he places it back on the holder wordlessly. He starts making his way over to Sam and Sam tries to morph his features into something nonchalant. He thinks he fails. Dismally. Dean stops at the edge of the bed.  
  
"Shove over," Dean says.  
  
Confusion is an improvement on guilt and fear, right? "Why?"  
  
"Because," Dean says as he toes his shoes off. "You're still shivering and we're out of blankets."  
  
"I'm fine," Sam insists.  
  
Dean just stares at him until Sam sighs and shuffles across the bed.  _Why_ he doesn't just get in from the other side Sam doesn't know. Dean stays looking at Sam, but Sam tries to look away. He's sure Dean can read all the apprehension he's feeling deep down inside, and it's _stupid_. All of it — so, so stupid. Dean's been killing for years and he never reacted like this. Actually, Sam vividly remembers Dad taking Dean to a bar and giving him a pat on the back the first time he burnt the bones of a ghost.  
  
"You did the right thing, you know," Dean says. "Well, not the running off part — that was dumb. But you took it down. Good on you. I should buy you a beer."  
  
"I don't want a beer," Sam mutters. He pulls the covers up to his chin and settles further back on the pillow.  
  
Dean grins. "A Cosmopolitan then?"  
  
Sam rolls his eyes and goes to turn away, but Dean grabs his arm and holds him steady.  
  
"Seriously, Sam," he says. "Good job. I'm proud of you."  
  
Sam breathes hard through his nose and stares up at the ceiling. Dean doesn't get it. Which is okay, really, Sam's just not up for listening to it. There  _was_ a person in that body. Sam knows there was.  
  
"You're still really cold, dude." Dean presses his hand to Sam's forehead, his cheek, briefly his lips. His sock-clad foot presses against Sam's bare thigh. "Maybe I should get a you to a doctor."  
  
Sam looks back at his brother and shakes his head. "I'm fine."  
  
He's been saying that a lot lately, and it's lost all meaning. Just words he has to use to get Dean off his case. Maybe it's true, though, somehow. This is his life now and it's about time he accepted it — that's what Dad always says at least.  
  
"All right," Dean says. His hand comes away from Sam and settles behind his own head. It's colder without the touch.  
  
"I just..." Sam doesn't even know what he's saying or how to finish that sentence. By telling Dean he doesn't want to be a part of this life anymore? He's already tried that. "Thanks," he says instead.  
  
"For what?"  
  
Sam quirks a smile. "For making sure I didn't die."  
  
Dean roll his eyes. "Not that hard, despite what I might say."  
  
It's nice to hear, even if Sam won't admit it out loud. He looks over at the phone, back at Dean.  
  
"He'll call us," Dean says. "Don't worry about it."  
  
Sam knows there were at least three demons they were hunting, and they were still meant to take them down as a  _family_. But ever since Sam learned they were actually real, Dad's been getting lax about it. Leaves Dean and Sam to fumble their way through it alone. He  _was_ meant to be here for this demon, though. He'd promised.  
  
"He'll be back soon," Dean continues, and Sam wonders who he's trying to convince.  
  
Sam  _knows_ Dad will be back. That isn't the issue right now. The problem that's twisting and combining with the guilt of what Sam's just done is that Dad left them. He'd said he wouldn't and he did. And, when he returns, it's going to be more of the same. A never-ending cycle of this _family business_ that's been drilled into Sam and will never, ever let up.  
  
When Dean's hand falls back against Sam's chest it startles him. His eyes fly back to Dean and he's finally acutely aware of just how close they are. The sharing a bed thing isn't new — it's a given in double rooms and it's not like Dad's gonna fork out extra — but they've always had a very distinct line of your-side-my-side. Now Dean has a leg hooked between Sam's and fingers sliding slowly across Sam's skin.  
  
"What are you doing?" Sam asks, and his voice gets caught somewhere along the way.  
  
Dean's fingers move higher, dip against Sam's neck and he shifts closer. His breath traces Sam's lips and makes them part without conscious thought. He knows what's coming. Can read it and feel it and sense it and—  
  
"I wanna kiss you," Dean confirms.  
  
Sam must nod or maybe even say "yes" out loud but he's not listening right now. He sees Dean move forward and then feels his brother's mouth hot and soft against his own. Sam would be lying if he said he'd never thought about this before, but it's so much more  _alive_ than any fantasy could ever capture.  
  
Sam's heart slams in his chest with fast, intense movements. He doesn't even know how they've ended up here. Just that it makes sense. For the first time in a long, long while, Sam has finally found something that  _makes sense_.  
  
Dean pulls away.  
  
"You can," Sam blurts out. Not sure exactly what it  _means_ , but he's pretty sure Dean's paused for a what-am-I-doing-is-this-okay crisis and Sam's not interested.  
  
"Can what?" Dean's so close Sam can't see anything beyond the way his lips move and the stubble patchworking skin underneath and above.  
  
"Anything." Sam twists his fingers into what he can of Dean's hair. He tugs at Dean's bottom lip before running his tongue over it.  
  
Dean makes a sound low in his throat and kisses Sam back. Sam's body finally feels warm again and he gets Dean closer, closer; Dean pressed above Sam, hands sliding down his ribs. Sam shivers again but this it's good. It's right. And Sam's okay. Really.  _Finally_.  
  
Then Dean's hand finds its way down the front of Sam's boxers, and Sam's brain turns into short-circuiting static.

 

* * *

  
  
 ** _December 2003_**  
  
Sam's not sure if what he's seeing is real.  
  
It's entirely plausible that it's not; he's been downing beers and strange red-cup concoctions for the last three hours. Anyone would be a little hazy on reality by now.  
  
Except he's pretty sure personal hallucinations don't include a friend nudging him in the ribs and saying, "Who's that guy checking you out?"  
  
"That..." Sam stares a little longer, a little harder. "That's Dean."  
  
(later, he may think back and question why he chose the name instead of 'My brother', but he's not thinking straight. Or maybe he is — more than he knows. Maybe he's been drinking more punch than beer and just doesn't want to admit it. Maybe.)  
  
Someone says something else to him, but Sam's making his way through the crowd of people and stops, less than an arm's length away, trying to fit his tongue to his brain to his mouth so he can say something fitting.  
  
"Heya Sammy," Dean gets out first.  
  
All Sam eventually comes up with is, "What are you doing here?"  
  
Nothing about Dean's face changes. He's still smiling and acting like they haven't been apart for months now. "It's Christmas."  
  
That shouldn't be an explanation. Sam wants to call him out on it but he's still struggling to wrap his mind around the fact Dean is here. At Stanford. Standing right in front of him at a damn frat party. How did he even figure out where Sam would be?  
  
"I know it's Christmas," is all his he thinks to say.  
  
"Glad to know you've still got enough brain cells left alive to read a calendar." He gestures to the drink in Sam's hand.  
  
Sam swallows.  
  
"How have you been?"  
  
There needs to be an answer to that somewhere inside Sam, but he's still drawing a blank when Holly comes to stand beside him and grins up at Dean.  
  
"Hi," she says.  
  
"Hey." Dean looks at her briefly and flashes her a smile, but his gaze is quickly back on Sam. "So this is what you're doing with yourself?"  
  
Sam doesn't know how he's supposed to answer that. Dean knew Sam was going to college, that he was turning a blind eye to the old life and making it alone. In his  _own_ way. No more family pride or business or promise. Just Sam Winchester.  
  
Dean would probably say he sounded like a bad drama film.  
  
"Do you go to college here?" Holly asks and saves Sam from some stupid answer that he doesn't want to say anyway.  
  
"Nope." Dean takes a mouthful of the beer he's been holding and keeps eyeing Sam up. "Just came to see Sam."  
  
"Oh." From the corner of his eye, Sam sees Holly's face light up. He's seen that look a few times before. " _Oh!_ "  
  
"No—" Sam tries to get in, but Dean cuts him off, getting between them and wrapping his arm around Sam's waist. Sam hadn't realised how much he'd missed it until then.  
  
He hasn't heard from or seen Dean in months, and even after trying to push it down, it's all rising back up again now and his chest aches with it. There is no point denying anything to Holly because he wouldn't be able to get any more words out even if he tried.  
  
"I think Sam's mentioned you," Holly says. The grin makes her face look as though it might break, and Sam realises he's never put  _Dean_ and _brother_ together in a sentence to anyone here before.  
  
"Holly!"  
  
She turns around and Sam sees one of the guys — Jake, Sam's pretty sure his name is — calling for her.  
  
She turns back to them. "I'll talk to you both later, okay?"  
  
"Sure," Sam says, and Dean nods beside him. His fingers dig in just a little bit deeper and Sam leans into the touch. They both watch Holly walk away and Sam struggles to work out what's supposed to come next. As it turns out, he doesn't need to. Dean looks at him.  
  
"Mistletoe, Sammy," Dean says. His eyes flicker up and Sam's follow to the little green plant above them. "It's only traditional."  
  
"Since when do we—"  
  
Dean cuts him off with a kiss. Right there in front of everybody. And Sam finds himself falling into it, hand coming up to rest in the crook of his brother's neck and mouth opening for him. He's missed this. From the first day apart he's missed this.  
  
"Good thing I came to see you?" Dean murmurs against Sam's lips when they break apart. The sensation goes straight through Sam and he nips at Dean's lips again.  
  
"Yeah," Sam answers, just as quiet. He doesn't know why he bothers; nobody's paying any attention to them any more. They're normal and blending just like Sam always wanted. "Stay."  
  
"Of course," Dean says. He kisses Sam again.  
  
He keeps that promise for a few days. Then it fades.

 

* * *

  
  
 _ **December 2007**_  
  
Sam's been here before.  
  
Not exactly. Not in the way of finding something you've lost or in the way of déjà vu, but in the way that it comes back to his soul and mimics something else.  
  
When he thinks about it, it's a shitty excuse for calmness. There's so much going on —  _Dean's deal_ not the least of them — but right now he's downing whiskey-laced eggnog and the only thing managing to fill his mind is  _I've been here before_. Sitting in motel rooms while Dad is on a hunt, face pressed against the frozen window and watching individual snowflakes float down.  
  
One of the last Christmases they'd ever celebrated together was '91. After that there was no point. All the magic and wonder had been stolen and destroyed, leaving Sam feeling as though the first eight years of his life were built on a lie. Not even feeling —  _knowing_. Dad wasn't a normal salesperson. Mom hadn't just died in a normal house fire. Dean didn't learn about guns because that's what normal people did.  
  
And now, all these years later, Christmas is only happening because of more ( _"I didn't sell my soul for you, Sammy"_ ) lies that hadn't lasted but had been lies nonetheless.  
  
Where the hell is Dean with that beer?  
  
 _Hell_. It's chasing them now.  
  
The door handle turns and Sam has to compose himself. There'll be time to fall apart later. "Hey," he says as Dean walks in and takes in the room. The look of awe that comes to his face? It makes up for a lot. "You get the beer?"  
  
Dean keeps staring. "What's all this?"  
  
"What do you think it is?"  _Sam_  hardly knows what it is, but he's keeping that to himself. "It's Christmas."  
  
The beer goes on the table, and then Sam takes broad steps to slam Dean against the closed door, pressing his mouth over his brother's.  
  
There's no hesitation from Dean as he lets Sam push his shirt to the floor. Dean's warm hands slide up Sam's shirt and splay across his stomach.  
  
"What changed your mind?" Dean asks.  
  
He doesn't sound like he wants an answer and Sam doesn't give him one. Instead Sam pulls Dean with him over to the bed — still two queens, the habit just won't die — and presses him down into the mattress. It sinks drastically under them but Sam just digs his knees in and chases Dean's mouth down.  
  
With this, they can pretend they're anywhere at any time. Nothing breathing down their backs or flaming at the end of the dark tunnel. Sam pops open the button of Dean's jeans and tugs at the zipper until he can reach a hand inside and pull his brother's dick free.  
  
"Fuck," Dean says with a hiss and pushes up his hips. Sam shoves his brother's clothing  the rest of the way down with his free hand, denim and cotton bunching up around Dean's knees and stalling there.  
  
They've also never been very good at making things linger. Learned it the hard way a long time ago and it's only getting worse.  
  
"Get a move on, Sam," Dean says and Sam realises his hand has stalled.  
  
He reaches across to the nightstand, to the jammed drawer he has to jiggle the handle of before it comes free and opens with a jolted slide. Dean's hand follows Sam's thigh to his ass as he reaches inside and pulls out the tube of lube and settles back on the bed with Dean still under him.  
  
"You know," Dean says as Sam unscrews the cap. "You could have added mistletoe to the decorations."  
  
Sam's response is to kiss Dean as he spreads lube over his fingers and presses inside. Dean's hand tightens its grip on Sam's still denim-clad ass with the action and his legs fall slack. Sam loves seeing Dean likes this. Always has, always will. It's even better now that Dean's stopped internally fighting it — gets that it's okay, that they've done worse things than this.  
  
He pulls his fingers free and shuffles out of his own jeans, discarding them somewhere on the floor. He's naked and Dean's mostly naked, which more-or-less surmises just about everything in some twisted way at the back of Sam's brain.  
  
"So you  _do_  remember the last Chri—"  
  
"Shh," Sam cuts him off. Stanford isn't a bad memory and Sam will never let it be, but they're here and now, and since here and now isn't going to be around much longer—  
  
Dean grasps the base of Sam's dick and guides him in. Grounds him. His legs wrap their way around Sam's thighs and hold him steady. All Sam has to do is slide a hand into Dean's hair, rock into his brother, and find a way to merge forgetting and remembering into a single moment, a single second in time.  
  
 _~_  
  
It's snowing again. The forecast said it was going going to keep up all night. Not that it'll impact anything for long; hunts are always waiting.  
  
Dean's thumbing through one of the skin mags he got Sam as the only last-minute present he said looked decent. Leaving Sam to suppress an indignant wrinkle of his nose because Dean looks at them the same way he watches daytime soaps.  
  
"The articles," he says, nonchalant, without looking up.  
  
Sam plucks  _Erolics_ from his brother's hands, lays it on the nightstand, and clicks off the lamp. There's still a decent amount of light streaming in from the streetlights and passing cars outside, but Sam's too exhausted to bother with the curtains.  
  
"You can have your precious  _articles_ in the morning," he says to Dean.  
  
"Good." Dean yawns. "It's about horror cinema through the years."  
  
"Right."  
  
Another car passes and throws in bright light, but it darkens after that. Stays dark and silent apart from the snowflakes on the window and Dean shifting under the covers.  
  
"Merry Christmas," Dean says as he rolls over and faces the wall. He won't be saying that next year. He won't ever be saying that again.  
  
But, even considering all he knows will be coming, Sam's decided he would still rather be here today than anywhere else. He settles back in the pillows and closes his eyes. "Merry Christmas, Dean."


End file.
